For the first time, I bought a book about one of the cases featured on UM. Stalemate - about the Amber Swartz, Ilene Misheloff, Amanda 'Nikki' Cambell and Michaela Joy Garecht cases.

Has anyone else read it? It's very upsetting. Any opinions on Timothy Bindner, the prime suspect in the case. He was involved with the searches for the girls but police viewed him as a suspect in all the cases.

Connie, please fill us in, a synopsis, of the story!

The story centers around the cat and mouse game Tim Bindner and the police investigators played. The author offers a very objective view of what has to be one of the most complex string of kidnappings and one of the most disturbing suspects. They had footage of Bindner on the UM episode - he is pretty convincing when he speaks...

But the police used bloodhounds to track the kidnapped girl's scents and all were found in Bindner's van and at the grave of another girl, Angela Bugay.

In the end, Bindner sued the police department, I believe, for harrassment or defamation of character. I am about 3/4 of the way through the book. All I can say is that Tim Bindner is about the creepiest, mentally unsound, devious character I have ever come across.

As it turns out, Tim Bidner for sure did not kill Angela Bugay. The guy that actually killed Angela Bugay was a man named Larry Graham Sr. He would have been 32 years old in 1983 when Angela Bugay was raped and murdered in Antioch. Graham had briefly dated Angela Bugay's mother. Graham was originally not a suspect in the case although he was arrested in 1996 after he was linked to the case via DNA evidence. In 2002, Graham was convicted of first degree murder and was sentenced to death. He just killed himself on death row the other day. That is how I found out about this.

As it turns out, Tim Bidner for sure did not kill Angela Bugay. The guy that actually killed Angela Bugay was a man named Larry Graham Sr. He would have been 32 years old in 1983 when Angela Bugay was raped and murdered in Antioch. Graham had briefly dated Angela Bugay's mother. Graham was originally not a suspect in the case although he was arrested in 1996 after he was linked to the case via DNA evidence. In 2002, Graham was convicted of first degree murder and was sentenced to death. He just killed himself on death row the other day. That is how I found out about this.

Do you know how he killed himself? Just curious. I figured death row inmates were under pretty close scrutiny.

Well remember though, this is San Quentin which has those tiered cells on death row. From what I have read officers only go by every 15 to 20 minutes so it would be easy for an inmate to hang themselves. I am not officially sure how he did but my guess would be he hung himself. I mean California has close to 700 people on death row. But to be honest, I am sure the guards in California or anywhere else would not go out of their way to save an inmate, especially a death row inmate. I mean the way they view it, it is a savings of money and especially in California, where the state is not even allowed to execute people and has been blocked from doing so since 06, this is a way for 'justice' although I will say if I believed in the death penalty and was a member of the victims family I would feel cheated that this guy was allowed to take the easy way out and not have to face the relatives of the little girl he killed.

Apparently the dna linked him to her murder:

http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_12607396

Aplogies for bumping up this thread, but I really would love to hear others' comments and opinions on Tim Bindner.

Aplogies for bumping up this thread, but I really would love to hear others' comments and opinions on Tim Bindner.

I have this book, but it's still packed from the move last year. I know I posted about it somewhere on here but can't find it right now.

While searching, I did find this thread about Binder Bidner Bindner... however it's spelled... that had a bit of interesting info.

http://www.sitcomsonline.com/boards/showthread.php?t=246319&highlight=binder

I'll go see if I can find more posted around here about this guy.

Some mentions of Binder in these threads: (Wishful, you posted in some of these, tho, so you're already familiar with the content.)

http://www.sitcomsonline.com/boards/showthread.php?t=304852&highlight=stalemate

http://www.sitcomsonline.com/boards/showthread.php?t=249338&highlight=stalemate

http://www.sitcomsonline.com/boards/showthread.php?t=228026&highlight=stalemate

http://www.sitcomsonline.com/boards/showthread.php?t=114751&highlight=stalemate

http://www.sitcomsonline.com/boards/showthread.php?t=195078&highlight=stalemate

http://www.sitcomsonline.com/boards/showthread.php?t=94277&highlight=bindner

Some mentions of Binder in these threads: (Wishful, you posted in some of these, tho, so you're already familiar with the content.)

http://www.sitcomsonline.com/boards/showthread.php?t=304852&highlight=stalemate

http://www.sitcomsonline.com/boards/showthread.php?t=249338&highlight=stalemate

http://www.sitcomsonline.com/boards/showthread.php?t=228026&highlight=stalemate

http://www.sitcomsonline.com/boards/showthread.php?t=114751&highlight=stalemate

http://www.sitcomsonline.com/boards/showthread.php?t=195078&highlight=stalemate

http://www.sitcomsonline.com/boards/showthread.php?t=94277&highlight=bindner

Thanks, Tracy! Yeah, I remember posting in these and should have just bumped one of them up. I'm just surprised Bindner is not more talked about (maybe it's because there have been few updates) considering how utterly bizarre he is.

Thanks, Tracy! Yeah, I remember posting in these and should have just bumped one of them up. I'm just surprised Bindner is not more talked about (maybe it's because there have been few updates) considering how utterly bizarre he is.

The thing that's bothering me is I feel certain that I discussed him after reading Stalemate and I can't find the thread here. I kept looking for it after I posted the links above, and just finally gave up.

When I unpack my books, I'm sure I'll read it again and will have plenty to say about that weirdo. :crazy:

The thing that's bothering me is I feel certain that I discussed him after reading Stalemate and I can't find the thread here. I kept looking for it after I posted the links above, and just finally gave up.

When I unpack my books, I'm sure I'll read it again and will have plenty to say about that weirdo. :crazy:
Awesome, can't wait to hear your thoughts. :)

I get chills every time I watch this segment, particularly with Bindner driving around the neighborhood with his van covered in Amber's missing posters and harrassing Kim Swartz--especially when his demeanor changes and he starts talking about finding her body in cold voice after initially being tearful and emotional. Something's wrong with this guy and I bet Philbin put together a good read and analysis of his character.

Have you read the book yet, Wishful? I think Tracy and I are in the same boat with our copies--pretty sure mine is packed, and I actually think it's packed somewhere back home in Tennessee.

I purchased the book primarily because I really liked John Philpin after seeing him on the NH serial killer segment and reading a book about that particular case, not because I really wanted to read about Tim Bindner himself. Bindner managed to give me the willies from page 1 until the end of the book.

Over the years, I've changed my mind a few times on it, but I think I can say this with confidence: even if Bindner is completely innocent of responsibility in any of those disappearances, he still does have extremely disturbed and inappropriate feelings toward young girls and a documented history of pestering and inappropriately contacting them. He is a very logical suspect, and even beyond the context of those cases, a probable risk to children.

Have you read the book yet, Wishful? I think Tracy and I are in the same boat with our copies--pretty sure mine is packed, and I actually think it's packed somewhere back home in Tennessee.

I purchased the book primarily because I really liked John Philpin after seeing him on the NH serial killer segment and reading a book about that particular case, not because I really wanted to read about Tim Bindner himself. Bindner managed to give me the willies from page 1 until the end of the book.

Over the years, I've changed my mind a few times on it, but I think I can say this with confidence: even if Bindner is completely innocent of responsibility in any of those disappearances, he still does have extremely disturbed and inappropriate feelings toward young girls and a documented history of pestering and inappropriately contacting them. He is a very logical suspect, and even beyond the context of those cases, a probable risk to children.
I haven't read the book. I really should look into it (along with other UM related books that have been recommended). I also really liked John Philbin in the NH case and that's part of what's got me so interested in reading Stalemate.

I can only judge from the UM segment, but I also feel that even if he's not guilty, he's a potential threat. The letters in the mail were creepy and show an unhealthy interest/attachment. Particularly because he didn't know these girls! Did he live next door to some of them? How else would he know where they lived--AND their names? :eek: Moreover, I find him to be a disgusting individual, toying with parents of missing children and pretending to be sympathetic. It's been a while since I've seen it, but I remember on UM Kim Swartz mentioned him sending her quotes from Crime and Punishment and other books, which she described as ''taunting''? That message on her answering machine was also extremely creepy.

Found my copy of Stalemate. I'm on page 17 right now. I think this is my 2nd reading.

If what this book says is true, Bindner has to be guilty. There are just too many coincidences.

The one that pretty much convinces me of his guilt starts when he was sending coins, poems, and love notes (written upside and backwards, telling the girl, Sheila, to stand on her head to read the note reflected in a mirror) to a girl he saw at a baseball game. She lived 40 miles away from him.

His scent was later tracked to an area overlooking her house, so he'd been watching her. During the time Bindner was sending Sheila letters, a 4 year old girl went missing less than a half mile from Sheila's house.

What are the chances that Bindner is inappropriately writing to and stalking a girl who lives 40 miles away from him, and at the same time, a little girl goes missing from just a couple blocks over? It's too much. I think he did it.

Even if he is innocent of the first murder (likely, because another man was convicted of it) I think his obsession with the first case was the catalyst for the future abductions.

Here's some info from the timeline included at the very beginning of the book:

November 19, 1983 - Angela Bugay goes missing

November 26, 1983 - Angela's body is found

December 1984 - One year later, Bindner begins visiting Angela's grave

June 2, 1988 - 3 1/2 years later, Bindner sends a letter to Angela's mother

June 3, 1988 - The very next day, Amber Swartz goes missing

June 6, 1988 - Bindner arrives at Amber's house offering to help search for her

June 15, 1988 - Dogs track Amber's scent to Angela Bugay's grave, where Bindner has been visiting since 1984

November 19, 1988 - Bindner fails firefighter test (is this a trigger for what happens next?)

November 19, 1988 - The same day Bindner fails the test, Michaela Garecht goes missing

November 20, 1988 - The next day, Bindner begins a two week search for Michaela

January 30, 1989 - Ilene Misheloff goes missing

February 11, 1989- Bindner searches for Ilene

May 22, 1991 - Bindner attends an Oakland As baseball game and sees Sheila Cosgrove

May 23, 1991 - The next day, Sheila receives the first letter from Bindner (how did he get her address?)

December 27, 1991 -Amanda "Nikki" Campbell goes missing (she lived less than a half mile from Sheila, who'd been receiving letters from and was being watched by Bindner)

December 30, 1991 - Bindner calls the Nikki Hotline offering his help

January 1, 1992 - Dogs track Nikki's scent to Angela Bugay's grave, where Bindner has been visiting since 1984

January 11, 1992 - Dogs track Bindner's scent to the cemetery where Angela is buried

January 15, 1992 - Dogs track Bindner's scent to a hill overlooking Sheila Cosgrove's home

December 9, 1992 - A police search of Bindner's house produces no evidence

June 9, 1993 - Bindner files $25 million dollar lawsuit against police

April 24, 1996 - 13 years after the murder, Larry Graham is arrested for killing Angela Bugay. He was later convicted. It's the first murder connected to Bindner (him visiting the girl's grave) and IMO is what started his involvement in all these cases.

May 2, 1997 - Police settle the lawsuit with Bindner, paying him $90,000

The letters in the mail were creepy and show an unhealthy interest/attachment. Particularly because he didn't know these girls! Did he live next door to some of them? How else would he know where they lived--AND their names?

From what I've read so far, Bindner lived between 15 and 40 miles from where these girls went missing. He lived 40 miles from the girl he was mailing notes to, and his scent was picked up in her neighborhood.

I also want to know how he's getting their addresses. As for the letters he sent to the moms (and showing up at their houses and stuff) I'd say it was pretty easy to get people's contact info right out of the phone book, because that was in the 1980s. The names and locations had likely been published in the newspaper and on tv news in an effort to find the missing girls. That makes it easier for him to find their homes.

But the girl at the baseball game? Did he talk to her there? Would she have told him her full name and city and then he looked her up in the phone book? I need to read further to see if that info is included.

As for back when he worked for the Social Security Administration in 1985, he found young girls who were applying for benefits by going through his work computer database. He easily got their mailing addresses, names, and dates of birth. He sent each girl $50 on her 14th birthday. He spent a total of nearly $2,000 in cash gifts. He was fired for that, but because he did not gain financially from his actions, his union was able to get him his job back. (That's the law for ya, hopefully they've changed it since then. The girls and their families are stalked and terrified, but since Bindner wasn't stealing money, everything was okay. :rolleyes: )

Due to his work history, he may have learned other ways besides the phone book to find names and addresses of the other girls, like the girl he saw at the baseball game. Or maybe he followed them home from the game and they didn't notice?

ETA: Bindner was in Hayward, CA (failing a firefighter's test) the day Michaela Garecht went missing from the store on Mission Blvd in Hayward, CA. Is the Hayward Fire Department in the same location now as it was back then? If so, the store Michaela was taken from is straight down the road from there and looks like it could be a route Bindner would take home after taking the test.

So he can be placed pretty darn close to the scene of these two abductions:

1) He was in the same area Michaela was abducted from, on the day of her abduction.

2) His scent was tracked to, and he'd been stalking another girl, in the same neighborhood from where Nikki Campbell went missing in Fairfield, CA.

Found this 2009 article about Curtis Dean Anderson: http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/story?id=6902134

He confessed to killing Amber Swartz, but died before the cops could question him further and they closed the case.

Anderson was a known pedophile but why do they think this guy did it? Just because of the confession? Tons of people falsely confess.

There's no physical evidence at all and in that article, Amber's mom says she want's some evidence before she will accept the police's decision.

I still can't get over the fact that Bindner sent a letter to Angela Bugay's mother, and then the very next day, Amber was abducted. Then Bindner went on a wild, convoluted, and obsessive search for her. Plus, her scent was tracked to Angela Bugay's grave, where we know Bindner had been visiting dozens and dozens of times. This Anderson guy says he kidnapped Amber and drove her out to Arizona where he killed her. There's no reason for him to stop of at Angela Bugay's grave.

All the things Bindner did in this case is just too much to be a series of coincidences.

----

Regarding Michaela Garecht's case, we discussed in other thread here if Phil Garrido was involved. This 2012 article says Garrido was ruled out in Michaela's abduction. http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/state&id=8544072

Haven't had much time to read. I'm only on page 51. I did want to report back to the people interested about some of the things in the book.

When I first read Stalemate, I might have been thinking this Bindner guy really looks guilty and sure is a weirdo who's obsessed with little girls, death, and cemeteries, but while reading it again I noticed that he's lying to police about where he is and what he's doing.

Someone who's involved in odd, but legal, activities doesn't need to lie to the police about little things. That sounds like something a guilty person would feel the need to do. Here's some text from the book:

Page 43, 44, 45: Amber Swartz had been missing for three days when a man in a light blue Dodge van with the California license plate LUV YOU drove up to the Swartz home on Savage Avenue.

He knocked on Kim's door in the afternoon, told a family member he had heard about Amber's disappearance and wanted to assist with the search.

He seemed jumpy, nervous. He was wearing a button that said I LUV KIDS, and he signed his name in a log book the family was maintaining.

Tim Bindner.

Kim's impression was that he was more than jumpy. The guy was wired, in tears. "I tried to save her," he said. "I couldn't. I looked everywhere. I did everything I could to save Amber."

[He did everything he could to save Amber but failed? How? She lived 20 to 30 miles away from him and went missing at 4:20pm on a weekday. When he showed up to Amber's house acting so strangely, she'd only been missing three days. IMO, his level of emotion is disproportionate for a man who didn't know her prior to her disappearance.]

He had maps, a list of places he had searched, and more that he though someone should be searching. While others voiced hope about the child's safety and assured Kim that Amber was out there somewhere and they were going to find her, Bindner said flatly, "You realize that we're looking for a dead body."

His demeanor hadn't changed, but he wasn't talking about places to find a living, injured child. He was talking about burial sites.



Bindner climbed into his van, drove to the end of Savage Avenue, and had just turned on to Pinole Valley Road when a patrol officer put his lights on, pulled him over, and asked to see his driver's license.

The officer looked inside the van and stared at the pictures of children, mostly young girls, stuck on the inside walls. "What are you doing?" the officer wanted to know.

"I'm going out to look for Amber," Bindner said.

"I thought you told the family you were going to the police station to pick up some flyers."

"I did tell them that," Bindner said, "but I decided to come out here first to do some searching."

Bindner sat in his van while the cop ran a check on his driver's license and a search for any outstanding warrants. He knew he was clear. After a few minutes, the cop returned with his license.

"I just love kids," Bindner said. "I want to help. But I have a feeling she's been kidnapped, raped, and killed by some pervert."

[B]Page 49, 50, 51: Wednesday, June 8, [two days after the incident above] Deputy Bloodworth-Winter was parked on the Alhambra Valley Road when Tim Bindner stopped his van. She noticed that many of the photographs she had seen in the van earlier were gone.

"The FBI took them," Bindner explained. "They also photographed and searched the inside of the van."

"Did you ever help search for any other missing children?" the deputy asked.

Bindner said no. He wanted to help in the search effort for Angela Bugay but his car wasn't running at the time and he couldn't get up to Antioch.

"Have you found anything?" she asked him.

"Not unless you count a dead cat and a dead dog," Bindner said.

[The next day] Thursday, June 9, when Bloodworth-Winter and another deputy were patrolling Carquinez Scenic Drive, north of Pinole, they spotted the blue van again. They followed from a distance, then stopped behind a parked school bus when Bindner pulled over to the side of the road. They watched him leave his vehicle, wandering down over a bank. The deputies waited.

In a few minutes, Bindner came up from behind a fence on the north side of the drive. He was holding an open beer and carried three more cans, unopened, on a plastic holder.

The deputies walked over and asked him if he had any luck with his search. He said no, adding that he had taken most of the week in vacation time to search. He'd go to the Social Security office early, wrap up some work, then head for Pinole.

When Bindner climbed back into his van and drove slowly down Carquinez Scenic Drive, the deputies walked to the hillside area on the north side of the road. Adjacent to the Alhambra Cemetery, in a gully, twenty feet from the road, they saw a piece of clothing sticking out of some freshly turned dirt.

Bloodworth-Winter's partner pulled at it and removed a child's sweater. There was more - a small red and white polka dot nightgown, a pink shirt, and a red and white polka dot skirt.

Almost five years before, Howard Medelsohn had discovered the body of Angela Bugay in the same way. But the deputies knew the description of the clothing that Amber had been wearing when she disappeared. This stuff was different. It had rained lightly earlier that day and had showered briefly on each of the previous two days. The clothing seemed fairly new, and it was dry.

A woman who lived on the drive told the deputies that she had seen the light blue van parked in the same area at least four times in the last few days, once at 6:00am. A neighbor said he had passed it on his way to work.

Just beyond the buried clothes, against a hill, there was a small, crude, wooden cross. West of the cemetery, there were two more crosses with empty holes recently dug at the bases of them.

The deputies contacted Pinole [police department], and again, FBI agents responded. They said they wanted marked units kept out of the area. They would provide surveillance of Bindner, and with officers from Pinole, would search the cemetery and adjacent fields the next day.

Bindner drove his van about 300 yards west of the cemetery, parked, and with his shovel, walked down a hill beside the road. Within a few minutes, he had moved the van again - 75 yards this time - and was sitting in the van with a map.

When a sheriff's cadet on litter patrol approached, the van was empty. He looked in from the driver's side window and, on the center console, saw a brown folder with Amber's name on it. There were other scribbled notes and the name, "Deputy Bloodwell."

The cadet spotted Bindner coming up out of a ravine carrying a shovel. "Any luck?" he asked.

"Not yet," Bindner said. "But if I find anything, it's probably going to be dead."

Bindner opened the back of the van to put the shovel away. The cadet noticed milk crates filled with empty bottles and aluminum cans. He also saw the kids' writing in crayon on the walls and the remaining photographs of young girls. He asked Bindner about them - two cute little blonde kids.

"They're dead," Bindner said. He explained that he had taken the pictures from a grave stone he was working on and had them reproduced. "I like doing that sort of thing," he said. [WTH? He stole photographs off the graves of dead little girls, had copies made, and plastered the inside of his van with these pictures!?]

"Why are you searching on Carquinez Scenic Drive?" the cadet asked.

"Just a hunch," Bindner said. "It's the first time I've been out here."

[B]---

It wasn't the first time he'd been out there. A witness who lived on the road had seen his van at least four times over the course of a few days. Another witness had seen it a different time. Why lie if he has nothing to hide?

I find Bindner's "rescue fantasy" detailed in the book to be extremely disturbing. IIRC, Bindner had or has some bizarre fantasy about rescuing an injured little girl and carrying her home, and fully admitted to having it. The book covers it in better detail. There's nothing particularly sexual about it at all, but it is nonetheless uncomfortable and strange by what I would assume is the average joe's standard.

I think Philpin believed Bindner's attempting to gain employment as a firefighter was rooted in this fantasy, as well as the priority Bindner put on the memory of helping victims during the earthquake out in the Bay Area in '89--he seemed to feel it was the most significant moment of his entire life.

I don't know if we couldn't say that Bindner lied to the police simply because he liked to play head games, and wasn't in fact involved in the disappearances at all. But given the chilling behavior he exhibits, it is, again, an absolutely logical conclusion IMO.

Yep, his rescue fantasies make him very suspicious, imo. I did some more reading last night and the incident at Amber's house after she went missing is even more bizarre than I thought.

Here's the timeline:

June 2, 1988 - Bindner sends Angela Bugay's mother a letter

June 3, 1988 - Amber Swartz is abducted from her front yard

June 4, 1988 - Bindner and his girlfriend travel to Reno, NV to get married

June 6, 1988 - Bindner arrives at Amber's house offering to help, teary, fidgety, and whining about doing everything he could to save her but he just couldn't

June 11, 1988 - Scent dogs find Amber's scent on Bindner's van

---

A few other tidbits:

Bindner had been charged in San Pablo with Annoying Children, but the charges were later dropped.

Before Amber went missing, parents in the area had been receiving anonymous phone calls from someone threatening to abduct their children.

Amber's mom Kim never liked Bindner, he gave her the creeps, and she said she never believed he was making visits to her home to help her, but rather to watch her in her suffering.

Bindner got Angela Bugay's mom's address by once again accessing the computer records at his work, the Social Security Adminstration office.

He got Sheila Cosgrove's address from the camera case she had with her at the baseball game.

---

The circumstances around Michaela Garecht's abduction are really unbelievable.

At 9:30 am, November 19, 1988, Bindner left the Haywood Fire Department on West Winton Avenue after having failed a firefighter's agility exam that he'd been training for. He was very upset about that because he needed the job and was counting on going into firefighting as a career.

The fire department was only 2 miles from the Rainbow Market.

He drank a beer in his van and prepared to drive home. If he wanted to avoid the freeway, Mission Boulevard, where the market from where Michaela Garecht was kidnapped was located, would be the road to take. She was abducted at 10:00 am.

That timing is just about exactly right for him to be mad about failing the test, stopping at the market for more beer, or driving around looking for a victim, or even just driving home by that route, and grabbing Michaela. He was right there at nearly the exact same time, within 30 minutes for certain. He admitted he was in the area during the time frame but said he didn't see anything unusual that morning.

What are the chances that creepy Bindner with his obsession for little girls and rescue fantasies (and who has just lost out on his ultimate rescue dream job) happens to be in the same spot at the same time when a little girl is abducted? The only thing that doesn't fit is the vehicle. The car Michaela's kidnapper had was not Bindner's blue van. I don't know if he had access to another car or not.

So, his story is that he failed the test, drank a beer, and drove about 15 miles home to Oakland from Hayward. When he got home, he learned about Michaela's abduction on the news, so drove back to Hayward to see if he could help.

He showed up at Michaela's Garecht's house, which was two blocks from the market. Coincidentally, Kim Swartz had heard about the abduction while she was at the Amber Foundation office and left there to go help the family. She was there when Bindner arrived.

Can anyone explain how search dogs traced Amber Swart's and Amanda Campbell's scents to Angela Bugay's grave (the one Bindner visited apparently most frequently); AND Bindner's van???

Can anyone explain how search dogs traced Amber Swart's and Amanda Campbell's scents to Angela Bugay's grave (the one Bindner visited apparently most frequently); AND Bindner's van???

Apparently the police assumed the evidence of Amber's scent on Bindner's van wasn't strong enough because it was possible to be discounted as a transfer of scent because Bindner had been inside Amber's house.

With Amanda "Nikki" Campbell, Bindner explained away the scent evidence in his car by saying that he was picking up discarded bottles and cans in an area about 3 miles from her neighborhood, and one of those cans could have possibly been touched by Nikki, leaving her scent in his vehicle.

That's just not possible, IMO, because the two areas the dog indicated had the strongest scent was the passenger door and the trunk area. Scent that strong and in those two areas is NOT coming from some discarded soda can Bindner picked up off the side of the road.

After talking to his wife, Bindner changed his mind on the soda can explanation and decided to accuse the police of planting Nikki's scent in his car.

I'm on page 140 right now, not quite halfway through the book. At this point, Amber's and Nikki's scents being on both Bindner's vehicle AND the cemetery he constantly visited sounds like really good circumstantial evidence to me, but I think they just couldn't get any solid evidence, like blood, fingerprints, dna, etc.

This scent trail connecting Bindner, his vehicles (by the time Nikki went missing he was driving a lime green Toyota station wagon), the girls, and the cemetery are convincing me that he's responsible for at least these two disappearances. Plus, in Amber's case, he took three polygraph exams. Two were inconclusive and he failed the third.

The scent trail at the cemetery is very convincing of his involvement. When searching for Nikki's scent, the dog ran between the meditation area and Angela Bugay's grave, across the cemetery to the mausoleum, then jumped up on a rail overlooking the maintenance shed at the bottom of a hill. It was the exact same path the dog had followed a few years earlier when tracking Amber's scent through the cemetery.

Bindner's scent at the cemetery can be explained, because he constantly visited there, but the scent of two missing little girls following the same convoluted path years apart? And both girls scent is in his car? And he obsessively involved himself in the search for both these missing girls? Way too much to be coincidence, imo.

More info on Bindner:

He was first fired in 1985 for accessing girl's private info by using his work computers. Was rehired 16 months later. In 1988 he was fired for good for again obtaining girl's names, addresses, birthdates (especially sending money to 14 year olds), etc, and sending them mail.

He accessed his work Social Security Administration database to look up a girl friend he last saw when she was 14. She was then age 35. They went out on a date.

In June 1988, Bindner predicted to the FBI that the next victim would be 9 or 10 years old. The next victim was abducted 5 months later. Michaela Garecht. She was 9.

Angela and Michaela were both taken on Saturdays, exactly 5 years apart. When Michaela was abducted, Bindner wrote a letter to the FBI pointing out that she was abducted 5 years to the day and date that Angela Bugay went missing. It was the first time in those five years that November 19th was a Saturday.

Amber and Nikki were both taken on Friday afternoons. In Amber's case, a pair of children's socks were found near the family home in an area that had already been cleared by the first search team. In Nikki's case, a pair of children's socks were found under the mobile crime lab, after it was moved from in front of the family home. It's assumed these were planted after the fact by the abductor.

In the weeks immediately after Amber's abduction, police observed Bindner frequently visiting Angela's grave, drinking, talking to her, and sometimes sprawling out, laying on top of the grave.

Early December 1991, an investigator who knew Bindner received a Christmas card from him. On the front was a picture of a little girl holding up four fingers. A few weeks later, Nikki went missing. The investigator then noticed the the girl on the card looked like Nikki, and Nikki was four years old.

Five days after Nikki's abduction, Bindner, who was normally a complete slob, was found to have a sparkling, spotlessly clean car, inside and out. He was never known to ever have his car in such immaculate condition. It was usually unwashed, neglected, and full of junk.

January 3, 1992, a week after Nikki went missing, Bindner again wrote to Sheila, the girl that lived in Nikki's neighborhood, saying that he'd searched for other missing girls and he intended to search for Nikki.

January 7, 1992, an investigator in Nikki's case decided to "get inside the mind" of the abductor. He drove from Nikki's neighborhood to an area where he thought the abductor might have taken her. It was three miles out from her neighborhood, in a big field on Gordon Valley Road. When he arrived at the place where he thought the abductor would molest the child while the family was still busy searching the neighborhood for her, Binder was already there.

While telling everyone that his endeavors were an effort to search for Nikki, police observed Bindner in behaviors that did not appear to be searching at all. He appeared to be playing some kind of game with the police, trying to get them to "tail" him, acting out a fantasy, but definitely not searching. When cops stopped him and asked him what he was doing, he said he was looking for Nikki's buried body. Just like with Amber, he assumed Nikki was dead even there had been three well known local cases where children who had been abducted by strangers had been recovered alive. One was a two year old recovered 10 months after the abduction, in the company of the two male kidnappers. Another was recovered alive after 6 weeks, and another was found on the day of the abduction.

Nikki went missing from Fairfield, CA. It was 40 miles from Binder's home and it happened in the same neighborhood where Sheila Cosgrove (the girl he'd been writing to for months) lived. He told police he had never been there, but they had observed him driving around like he had the immediate area memorized, not reading road signs, and going exactly where he meant to go without getting lost or stopping to read a map.

Bindner told cops that if he was a killer, he might mark the grave in some way, such as stacking up three rocks in a pyramid style. While searching in Nikki's case, police found three rocks stacked up in a pyramid by two storage buildings behind the local elementary school. It was not a grave and they didn't know what the rocks were marking.

January 11, 1992, about two weeks after Nikki went missing and a couple days after Bindner had been interrogated, police decided to check the cemetery for his scent. He had apparently been there the night before, drinking Jolt soda, walking through the cemetery, and dropping the soda cans like a crumb trail. His scent was located in the children's section, the maintenance yard, and the mausoleum. All the same places that Amber and Nikki's scents had been located.

Not sure if I posted anything about this upthread. Amber's missing persons case had been closed, due to the confession of a person who I don't think was involved. Amber's mother didn't think the confession was good either.

Apparently, Curtis Dean Anderson's only motivation for confessing to Amber's abduction and murder was so that he could somehow get off death row by admitting to the crime.

Last year (2013) Amber's case was re-opened. Quote from an article published October 2013:

Amber’s mother, Kim Swartz, thanked police at Tuesday’s City Council meeting and said she is “ecstatic” about the reopening of her daughter’s case.

“I would rather have my daughter on a missing persons’ list for eternity” than to base the closure of the case on “someone like Curtis Dean Anderson, who got basically off of Death Row by signing a confession,” she said.

Swartz, who held up photos depicting how her daughter might look today, said she plans to pursue legislation that would ban law enforcement agencies from closing a missing persons’ case without evidence.

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2013/10/02/despite-confession-police-reopen-1988-case-of-missing-pinole-girl/